


Covenant

by Medie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Porn Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:16:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her feet will always carry her to him. It is a choice she'd made in that eternal moment when she'd first reached him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covenant

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [Porn Battle X (Ten Big Ones) ](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/30726.html) for the prompt Dean/girl!Castiel - vessel.

There is no host. She emerges into the world of Man in flesh that is her own, no vessels, no sinking into another, and knows she is _different_. It is not unheard of. Once she and her siblings walked these shores in flesh that required no disguise. Bodies of heavenly construction that muted and modulated the power of their existence, but never truly hid it.

She does not truly hide it now. There's a power in her that lies too close to the surface, threatening to consume her whole, and Castiel lets it carry her forward. She does not know precisely why there is no host this time, why they have returned to the ways of old when, in centuries past, Man's denial and derision had forced them into hiding to protect the faithful.

She will not ask.

She takes her first steps on new feet, unsteady as yet, and feels her hips move with a rhythm of motion she has never known. Dark hair spills over her shoulders, brushing bare skin still marked and scarred from a battle only days behind her.

_Dean_.

The afternoon wind throws dust into her face and she blinks away the stinging pain. In that moment of eyes sliding shut, darkness slipping in around her mind, she sees him as she'd seen him then. Staring out of a face made bloody by her former brothers, beaten and battered, eyes fixed upon her shining form with a desperation that had given Castiel her first known taste of rage.

She's known the vitriolic hate of the fallen before. She's despaired at the agony they've wrought on Man, but she has never known such fury. Not until the first sounds of one man's agony reached her ears, until she heard him break, heard him fall, and felt a fury that threatened to burn her to a cinder.

Castiel breathes in air tinged with pollutants, coughs, and breathes again. This isn't the Earth she remembers. The last time she walked like this, in her own skin and not the borrowed - if willing - body of one of the faithful, the air was crisp, clean. Unsullied by fossil fuels and a thousand other obscenities Man has harnessed to ease Adam's inheritance.

For a moment, if only a moment, she regrets her orders. Wishes she'd been permitted the escape of another's flesh, a body used to this world and its imperfections, long inured against the discomfort they bring. She rejects the impulse, though, as quickly as it occurs. She has her orders and her duty, she will follow both, as - most of all - she has her charge.

She has failed Dean once already. She cannot do so again. With that resolution, she ignores the discomfort with the understanding that she will adjust...and when she has acquired clothing.

She locates such in the ruined store, sliding into jeans likely left behind by an employee. They are worn, easily embracing her hips, and unexpectedly comfortable. She forages through the small room until she produces an equally worn, but comfortable shirt. Footwear proves more difficult, but she is soon setting out after Dean. She chooses, for a time, to walk. It will not be so difficult to find him and she does not feel the pressing need of an impending attack.

For now, he is unknown to the others. They lack the connection to him that she carries, still feeling the echo of his spirit pressed against her where she'd held him and sheltered close to her breast as they'd sped their way from Hell's clutches.

Her feet will always carry her to him. It is a choice she'd made in that eternal moment when she'd first reached him. While her companions had battled back Lucifer's forces, she'd hovered before him, caught by the agony in his eyes. He'd been unable to stand her scrutiny, flinching away from the brilliance of her presence, and his pain struck deep within her.

She'd lashed out, blade shining even in Hell's unending darkness, slicing through the chains that had bound him. Let him fall into her embrace and carry him away, ignoring the wounds left by her fallen brethren.

When she finds him, when Dean strikes out at her in disbelief, she cannot help but grin in delight. _Yes_. "Better," she murmurs, though he cannot hear. This is him. The man she'd been sent to find. There same anger that burned in her now burns in him and she lets herself feel hope. With this Dean, they stand a chance and she can't help but loosen her control just a little. She feels her true form creep around the edges, slipping, brightening the room around them. Lightning cracks, thunder rolls, and she is _free_.

She doesn't know, then, if he remembers or not, but he will know her. He could not hear her before, when she'd stood beside him, in the space between heaven and hell, and spoke his name.

Castiel tips her head to one side, smiling, and Dean stares back. She thinks that she can see a tremor run through him as he asks, "What the fuck is this?"

Castiel presses her lips together, returns to her disguise with effort, and touches him for the first time. His mouth is lush beneath her fingers, she traces the shape of it, remembers him trying to speak as she'd cradled him. "A promise," she says.

Days pass. She moves into and out of his life, always in his orbit, following her orders and the whisper of that promise beneath her skin. She's confused by his world, never seeing it this way, and that confusion seems to amuse him.

He takes her shopping. "Because, Cas, you can't wear the same thing all the time."

She's uncertain as to why that matters. Points out that she keeps her borrowed clothing clean, washing it at that very moment, and is further confused by the way Sam ducks his head and blushes furiously.

"Because you just can't, okay?" Dean huffs.

It's not an explanation, but most of their explanations are more confusing than the question so she accepts it. She lets him lead her through the local Goodwill, picking at this and that, and then dumping it on the counter before a bored-looking teenager.

"Doesn't she want to try it on?" the girl asks, confused.

Castiel watches Dean's expression, as confused as the teenager before them, and wonders if there will ever be a day when she understands humans. She begins, however, to understand the fascination her brethren once had for the daughters of Man.

At least, in part.

Completion comes later. Much later when, in the aftermath of a battle, it is he who cradles her. She feels the rough fabric of the motel's bed scratch at her wounds and draws back from them.

"Stop that," he mutters, digging through a first aid kit. "You're making it worse."

"I don't like this world, Dean," she says, honest.

"You and me both, Cas."

"Why do you call me that?" she asks, biting her lip against the pain. Pain is a new sensation to her, physical discomfort at least. She has known agony of the soul, carried the suffering of thousands with her over the millennium, but this is different. She nearly cries out when he touches her, but quells it with the curiosity of her question.

"What?"

"Cas."

He grins. "Because you hate it."

"I -- " Castiel considers it. "It is not my name. I do not understand why you use it."

"Because," he says. His head lowers, supposedly in concentration, but she sees the dull red flush of embarrassment creeping over his skin.

She frowns. "You make no sense."

"When do I ever?"

Castiel reaches up, fingers tracing the curve of his ear, "When you fight."

He flushes deeper, ignoring the comment as he bandages her wounds.

"You don't see yourself, do you?" she asks. "Not as I see you. As they do." She breathes deep against the pain and wishes she could, for a moment, share her vision of him. Of all of them, but most especially Dean. She is, she thinks, biased, but she has accepted that. There's no point in denying it.

"Believe me, baby, if I did, this shit would make a hell of a lot more sense."

She smiles. "Yes, it would."

He looks down at her and she _understands_. She'd never before. Never known what would drive her brothers from the wonder of heaven's shores to the flesh of mortal women. She has known the beauty of the daughters of Man. Listened to their prayers and watched over them, suffered with them, loved them, but she has never desired them. Never made that connection between her kinship and her passion. She has never desired Man's sons either. Never wanted them. She's always known fulfillment in her duty and her mission, but finds that it is no longer enough.

A whispered, "_Oh_," falls from her lips and Castiel reaches for him. She ignores the discomfort of her wounds as she pulls at his clothes, eager to be as they once were. Nothing between them, pure spirit and energy, tangled together in a desperate rush for safety.

Dean, however, can't. He's slow, careful, muttering in annoyance when her breath hitches in pain. "Will you _stop that_!" he protests when she moves too quickly, pushing her back onto the bed, albeit as carefully as he can.

"No," she decides, giddy with the word. She rises, shedding her clothing, and presses along the length of him. He gasps, hand tangling in her hair as she covers her mouth his. She rocks against him, squirming, confused by a body that suddenly wishes to be everywhere at once and so very _desperate_. "I --"

"Are gonna hurt yourself?" Dean says, voice rough, licking into the kiss anyway.

"Wounds heal." She tugs at his jeans, intent on getting the zipper down. "I will be fine."

"Damn well better be." His mouth pulls away from hers and, before she can protest, Dean presses into her skin, tucking his head beneath her chin where she'd sheltered him so many months before. He rocks against her, slow and deliberate, and his hand works between her legs.

She curls into his body, wrapping her arms around him, and permits him this.

They both live each day with the screams of the damned echoing in their ears, memories of Hell never truly far from their thoughts, but all Castiel can hear now is her name on his lips, his breath harsh against her skin, and she gives him the sound of his name, low and warm in response.

He withdraws his hand when she is at a near fever-pitch and she watches, breathing uneven, as he shucks his clothes and digs through a bag. When he's ready, she takes him into her and moves with him. She touches the mark of her hand on his shoulder, lining her fingers up with their prints, and watches as he traces the marks on her skin.

She comes when he lowers his head and ghosts his lips the length of one.

After, when they're curled together, she watches him continue his exploration. "Don't remember these," he says. "That was -- "

Castiel feels herself smile, rueful, "A parting gift."

He sighs. "Can't you get rid of them?"

"Yes," she nods.

"But you won't?"

She nods again.

Dean frowns. "Why not?"

"Some wounds are to be honored," she says. "These are a promise. I keep it and I keep them."

He shakes his head, muttering beneath his breath. Anyone else, she thinks, he might distract with a kiss, but they are not that, not yet.

She doesn't know what they are, but she is satisfied it nonetheless. "I promised, Dean."

"I didn't ask you to," he says and, there, for a second, she can hear the anger. The fear. For an instant, she sees herself as he must see her, and she aches for him anew.

"No," she says, rising over him. He stares up at her, eyes shuttered and confused, and she leans down to kiss him. "I chose." She thinks he can understand the significance of that. Of a moment when orders become a choice that's holy in a way all its own. "As did you."

Dean nods, silent, and tugs her down again. "Sleep."

She considers protesting, finding that she desires him again, but sees exhaustion in his eyes. She lets check the bandages one more time before settling down himself, curling around her like before, his head pressed over her heart as he sleeps.

Silent in her promise, Castiel keeps watch.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/189816) by [rivkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/pseuds/rivkat)




End file.
